No doubt he is a genius when it comes to software and innumerable gadgets and such; I am really pleased he got into computers big time. I certainly got a lot from that in my own line of work.

But Bill Gates really needs to shut about some other things he is confused about. Like his claim the other day, when he announced his impending retirement and turn to full time philanthropy, that he "needs to give back to the community."

On Monday, July 31, less than two weeks before his 80th birthday, Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished power to his brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, the official successor as head of state, the armed forces, and the Communist Party.

Whether or not Fidel, who seized power on January 1, 1959 and has not relinquished it for a single day until now, recovers from this particular infirmity - officially described as an "intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding" - it is clear that his rule is at an end.

Less clear is what will happen to his regime.

 The Marine incident, and its aftermath, at Haditha last November tells us much more about the media than it does about the Marines. And what it tells us ought to outrage us to the core.   

On every radio and television show I appeared on last week (and all I observed) in which this topic came up, without exception at least one of the media people immediately attempted to implicate not just the still-presumed-innocent Marines, but the American military's leadership and methods in general.     

The "Drive By Media" (Rush Limbaugh's scientifically accurate description) has already started to report this story in a manner that is likely do vast damage that may last for several years to the morale (and possibly recruitment) of our military. It will create a propaganda catastrophe of strategic proportions in our mortal struggle with radical Islam and their terrorist spear point.     

With oil prices reaching record levels, the left is up to its old tricks, blaming the President and calling for lots of expensive big government "solutions". As part of this push, they argue that we're running out of oil.  

But clearly, this argument is not new -- and it's dead wrong.  

Truth be told, the world's estimated oil reserves grew from 60 billion barrels in 1920 to 600 billion by 1950, 2,000 billion by 1990, and 3,000 billion by the year 2000. And in the next few years, they'll keep rising. Here's why.

When I went to college I had my biggest problem with the discipline of history. It may have started when I was a kid in Hungary and first ran up against official "scholars" who rewrote Hungary's history-renamed the streets in Budapest, rewrote all the textbooks, and reshuffled the holidays, and even completely recast Western intellectual history.

Under Marxism there was room for just one account of the development of philosophy, namely, what Karl Marx and his epigones wrote.

At first I thought that in a relatively free society historians could be trusted a lot more than under Marxism. But I am not so sure about this now.

In the advertisement "A Renewed American Agenda" (USA Today, May 4, 2006) - placed by The Bedell World Citizenship Fund of Spirit Lake, Iowa - the organization urges us to "Recognize that All Americans Have A Right to Medical Care."

I suppose they mean well but in fact they are perpetrating a gross misunderstanding about individual rights.

Medical care is a value doctors, nurses and other medical professionals would, if they were free men and women, provide to those they would choose as recipients, on terms they regard as acceptable.

These provisions are not owed to anyone. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals may not be placed into involuntary servitude to those needing their services. The relationships must be voluntary, no matter how vital those services are to the recipients.

The belief that others may justly be placed into involuntary servitude so as to secure funds to pay medical professionals - who then will service those who need their work - is a gross moral error.

[To The Point salutes the courageous Chinese lady, Wenyi Wang, who publicly denounced Communist oppression in China to Hu Jintao at the White House yesterday, April 20. 

Hu Jintao governed Tibet for several years, brutally tyrannizing the Tibetan people.  One of those Tibetans is Phuntsog Nyidron, who tells her story here.  For information on how to help liberate Tibet, go to FreeTibet.org. ---JW]

I was 19 years old when I made the protest that resulted in my imprisonment for 15 years. It happened in 1989, when my country, Tibet, was under martial law.

Together with a group of fellow Tibetan nuns, I went to the Barkhor area of central Lhasa, and we shouted, 'Long live the Dalai Lama!' and 'Free Tibet.' We had been inspired by the news that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and we wanted to make a statement of our continued loyalty to him.
    

I did not experience freedom again until I was finally released to the care of the D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet last month on March 15.

 It is lucky America has more than two centuries of mostly calm experience with self-government. We are going to need to fall back on that invaluable patrimony if the immigration debate continues as it has started this season.

The Senate is attempting to legislate into the teeth of the will of the American public. The Senate Judiciary Committeemen - and probably a majority of the Senate - are convinced that they know that the American people don't know what is best for them. 

The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus. 

But if they would be dictators, it would be nice if they could at least be wise (until such time as the people can electorally kick their regrettable backsides out of town). It was gut-wrenching to watch the senators prattle on in their idle ignorance concerning the manifold economic benefits that will accrue to the body politic if we can just cram a few million more uneducated illegals into the country.  I guess ignorance loves company.